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[tomofmunich]

[tomofmunich]

As (Ulrich) looked down at the dark surge of bodies beneath the window, thoughts of his own days in the army made him say to himself: "It would take only one company to make a clean sweep of the square." He could imagine all those gaping mouths turning into a single frothing maw suddenly succumbing to panic, growing slack and drooping at the edges, lips slowly sinking over teeth; his imagination transformed the menacing black crowd into a flock of hens scattering before a dog rushing into their midst. All his anger had contracted again into a hard knot, but the old satisfaction in watching moral man retreat before brute violent man was, as always, a two-edged feeling. "Are you alright?" Count Leinsdorf was asking. He had been pacing the floor behind Ulrich and had actually received the impression from some odd movement of Ulrich's that he had cut himself, though there was no sharp-edged object anywhere in the vicinity.

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities

[tomofmunich]

The depressing mixture of brutality and suffering that is the nature of such people was as distasteful to (Ulrich) as the blend of precision and sloppiness that characterized the judgments usually pronounced upon them. He knew precisely what he had to think of Moosbrugger, if he took a sober view of the case, and what measures one might try with such people who belong neither in prison nor in freedom and for whom the mental hospitals were not the answer either. He also realized that thousands of other people knew this, too, and were constantly discussing every such problem from the aspects that each of them was interested in; he also knew that the state would eventually kill Moosbrugger because in the present state of incompleteness this was simply the cleanest, cheapest, and safest solution. It may be callous to resign oneself to this; but then, our speeding traffic claims more victims than all the tigers of India, yet the ruthless, unscrupulous, and casual state of mind in which we put up with it is what also enables us to achieve our undeniable successes.

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities

[tomofmunich]

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities

Felitti et. al. (1998), Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study

[tomofmunich]

I do not believe in Mazu, but neither am I entirely sure what belief in Mazu might look like. To take a religion seriously is to act as though its deities exist and have power (Chau, 2019). In the case of Mazu, and many other Chinese deities, however, there is nothing like the Judeo-Christian God’s insistence on exclusive devotion in the absence of clear evidence, the Kirkegaardian leap of faith toward the unknowable (Climacus, 1846). Mazu simply is, and if you do not care about her, she is unlikely to care about you. ... On this and subsequent visits to the Main Hall (of the Nansha Tianhou Temple in Guangzhou), I am surprised at the lack of devotion. Some people pray briefly, and some even kneel before the central statue, but this seems more perfunctory than the prayer rituals I have observed elsewhere. Furthermore, I never see any religious professionals such as monks or oracle interpreters in or outside the temple, and there is a complete absence of the usually ubiquitous incense and divination tools such as fortune sticks kau cim 求籤. Although it is true that I am visiting the temple on an ordinary weekday, the absence of the paraphernalia of devotion seems to affect visitors’ interactions with the goddess. These exclusions are likely intentional: I assume the temple administrators are emphasising its status as a scenic spot and reducing its potential for hosting folk religious activities, prioritising cultural heritage over engagement with the sacred. Most visitors treat the temple as a leisure park, as a nice place to go for the day—and yet this leisure activity is not precisely disconnected from Mazu. Although I witness little in the way of intensive prayer, nearly all visitors at least briefly step inside the Main Hall, and most subtly bow to the statue. Mazu is not receiving many supplications, but she is not just there for decoration; she is being greeted and acknowledged.

The Goddess Mazu Has Many Homes: Place, Experience, and Autoethnographic Encounter With the Sacred by Adam Grydehøj

[tomofmunich]

[tomofmunich]

I do not want to lead you into temptation again, like that time in the library before the bust that depicted the perfect harmony of your beauty in your fortieth year. You were wrapped in a green cloak and leaning on a pillar, watching to see if I might finally recognize my present friend in these rejuvenated features. Ah, my mischievousness and secret desire did not let me say it. “Well?” he asked impatiently. “He must have been a handsome man,” I said. “Yes, indeed, one could say that he was handsome in his time,” he said, growing annoyed. I wanted to approach him, but he rebuffed me and for a moment I was hurt.  “Won’t you stand still like this bust so I can flatter you gently?” I called out. “I’ll set aside the living and kiss the stone until you become jealous of it.” I embraced the bust and kissed its lofty brow and its marble lips. I leaned against it, cheek to cheek, and that was when he suddenly pulled me away and held me high over his breast - this man of sixty looked up at me and called me sweet names and said the lovely words: “Dearest child, you lie in the cradle of my heart”. Then he set me back down on earth, wrapped my arm in his cloak and held my hand over his beating heart. And thus we slowly began to walk home. “How your heart pounds!” I said. “The seconds that beat within my chest rush towards you with impulsive passion, just as you chase me irretrievably forward through time."

Bettina von Arnim, Goethe's Correspondence With a Child (trans. me)